Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Beer Bread

I'd been meaning to make my colleague Simchi's beer bread for months. When life handed me an almost-full, slightly-flat bottle of Fat Tire, I knew the time had finally come.

This recipe uses quite a lot of baking powder, so my guess is that the beer doesn't really serve a functional role so much as a taste role. The beer (naturally) made the bread taste yeasty, as if it wasn't just a soda bread. The texture, however, was still closer to that of a soda bread--no net of gluten going on here, despite the fact that the dough was quite doughy (as opposed to the battery consistency of many quick breads).

I thought this bread was fast and delicious, but be warned that it is rather dry. Acceptable accompaniments include: soup, or lots of melty butter. Peanut butter is not recommended unless you want to glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth (or, wash it down with a lot of tea/coffee/soymilk).